Wide World of Women

Just need a little advice guys. What I want to know is what would you say would be the max size/time I can go on a dvd without losing any quality at all. I know a dvd has like 4.7 gig of space and can hold up to 2 hours. Im afraid the more I add the less quality I will get. My problem is I currently have about a little over five gig of mpeg to burn. What would be the best ratio of time/size of multiple files for a dvd. Im looking at a little over 100 mpegs that rougly are maybe 30 secs to three minutes per mpeg. Should I concentrate more on the time Im taking up on the dvd or how much space?

Are you making a DVD to playback on a DVD player?

Sorry...yeah this will be played back on a dvd. Not just for storage. Wait actually I guess it would be more effecient for storage though. Im not really going to be playing them on a dvd. plus quality wont be any better burning to dvd will it.

If you just burn data disc with your mpeg-2 files then you will get the maximum storage.

If you want to make a disc for a DVD player you need software like Nero Vision that makes menus. If you do this there will be some quality loss because the software will re-encode the vids to bitrates that you choose. The 2 hour mode is about 2 hours, but can be cut down to less the more you add. I think the menus some software creates takes up space because they are animated, and it's basically a separate mpeg-2 (.vob) file on the disc for the animations.

The general settings for most software is 2hr mode is 4Mbps, 1 hour is 8Bmps. Some have a 3.5 or something for 2.5 hours. There's noticeable quality loss if you go to 3hr or lower. I wouldn't go lower than 2.5 because then the software cuts down the resolution to 360x240 because of the lower bitrate.

I know there are DVD players that play back DivX, but I'm not sure if there are any that play raw mpeg-2 burned as data discs. Do a little searching, and I'm sure you'll find something. You might have to burn in certain disc format, but Nero Burning Rom has several options.

I've always found the easiest way to watch vids from a PC is to either play them from a laptop with a dual monitor setup or through some type of network streaming device. Even if you burn data discs, you can play the files right from the discs on a PC. XBox 360 has a built in Media Center Extender that when setup streams vids right from your computer through your home network. It's great except it only plays wmv and mpeg-2. There are other devices on the market now, and they are right around the price of a DVD player. I wish I could recommend one, but I only have the 360 which suits my needs. I can play anything on my hard drives upstairs down on the big TV in the batcave.

Also read through videohelp's pages. A lot of good info on DVD's, different formats, etc. Great for video heads.

http://www.videohelp.com/

Thanks as always tech guru!

Think I will just save them as mpeg files. Why havent I been doing this before. Ive been burning to dvd as a vob to play on dvd players. Man losing a little quality is no good. I will just save as mpegs and use the dvd as a storage device.

Thanks again donkeed!

No problem. Just a few more notes. Burn at slowest speed to make sure all data is written correctly, and make sure you to check the data before you delete the files. See if your computer see's the files on the disc, and play a few of them to see if they are written.

I'm going to make an FYI later here in tech support when I stop being lazy on disc longevity..brand, type, shelf life, etc., but also do a little searching to see what discs are best. Not all media is created equal, and for your most precious vids you don't want to lose it because of bad discs.

You also don't want to lose it become of a bad DVD player-recorder.